For those that post from work, do you think your company uses keyloggers?

MaxDSP

Lifer
May 15, 2001
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They wouldn't tell you if they were, right? I'm always cautious when I post or IM from work, but I doubt that my company is going to monitor the keystrokes of like 10,000+ employees nationwide. There's always that small possibility though...
 

Jzero

Lifer
Oct 10, 1999
18,834
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We don't have that kind of time. Your actions are probably recorded by a proxy server, but most IT departments don't monitor those logs unless they are asked to (e.g. Joe seems to be wasting a lot of time on the internet...can you show us what he is doing?)
 

MaxDSP

Lifer
May 15, 2001
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Originally posted by: Gage
Could you tell if they were using it? How could you find out?

well, write in a word document that your gonna burn down the company. If you get fired, then the company uses the...:D
 

Gage

Senior member
Jan 30, 2000
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So let's say, hypothetically speaking, that someone were suspicious of what their SO does on the internet and being an IT professional has access to those kind of resources. What could they do and how would you know if they were doing it? Also how would you prevent it?

I'm not asking for me or anything. Just hypothetically speaking.
 

MaxDSP

Lifer
May 15, 2001
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Originally posted by: Gage
So let's say, hypothetically speaking, that someone were suspicious of what their SO does on the internet and being an IT professional has access to those kind of resources. What could they do and how would you know if they were doing it? Also how would you prevent it?

I'm not asking for me or anything. Just hypothetically speaking.

suuuure, hypothetically speaking...:D

Well, they can attach a hardware keylogger that plugs in between the keyboard and the PC port (might be only for PS/2, dont know about USB), and thatll capture the keystrokes that are sent (price goes up as memory does). However, all it could take is a glance at the back of the computer to see if theres a keylogger installed, assuming that they know what it is.

Software programs, however, can be pretty covert and the "victim" in most cases will not know it's running. Good ones won't show up in the taskbar until a special command or something is typed. Also, as Jzero said, there are other ways of going about this too.
 

Encryptic

Diamond Member
May 21, 2003
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If they were using keyloggers I probably would have gotten canned a long time ago. Or maybe not. :evil:
 

Mr N8

Diamond Member
Dec 3, 2001
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No. If they did, I would be the one to install it. We do have a program to do it (eblaster), but its not going to be implemented unless a manager wants to see if someone is working or not.
 

DaiShan

Diamond Member
Jul 5, 2001
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Originally posted by: MaxDSP
They wouldn't tell you if they were, right? I'm always cautious when I post or IM from work, but I doubt that my company is going to monitor the keystrokes of like 10,000+ employees nationwide. There's always that small possibility though...

They don't block access to AIM, and you are worried about key logging? Someones admin is sleeping on the job...
 

DrPizza

Administrator Elite Member Goat Whisperer
Mar 5, 2001
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Originally posted by: MaxDSP
They wouldn't tell you if they were, right? I'm always cautious when I post or IM from work, but I doubt that my company is going to monitor the keystrokes of like 10,000+ employees nationwide. There's always that small possibility though...

They won't? I believe that Siemens outsources e-mail to some place in India where all of the incoming and outgoing emails are checked for work related content. Furthermore, it would be a piece of cake to log everyone's keystrokes.... that doesn't mean they're going to read them though. But, to make it more efficient, they could just search for particular words and narrow it down to a couple hundred employees to check up on. I believe one of the words they'd check for is "keylogger"... so you're busted if you used that word in this thread!

What's amazing about keyloggers is that you don't even have to send something...... you could type "my boss is an a$$hole", followed by a change of mind about sending that. The log would show "my boss is an a$$hole [del][del][del][del][del][del][del][del]...."
 

Ernieb

Senior member
Jan 13, 2002
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i only post on anandtech when i m at work Mon to Fri
so im here to kill time to post and read stuff

i m not sure if they do know that im posting here instead of working or not
one thing im sure is im not the only one who is doing something else than work :)
and toda i don't have much work to do anyways...
the manager is out golfing..wowo.. today is kind of like a day off to me..
so everyone happy posting..
 

FoBoT

No Lifer
Apr 30, 2001
63,084
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fobot.com
they don't need keyloggers, ALL internet traffic goes through a proxy server, so they know all the URL's that people are using and they subscribe to the "WebSence" filtering service to keep people off of "bad" web sites
 

Tab

Lifer
Sep 15, 2002
12,145
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Originally posted by: FoBoT
they don't need keyloggers, ALL internet traffic goes through a proxy server, so they know all the URL's that people are using and they subscribe to the "WebSence" filtering service to keep people off of "bad" web sites

He hit the target on that one. Their is plenty of software that you can use that'll moniter a computer activity remotely.
 

MaxDSP

Lifer
May 15, 2001
10,056
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71
Originally posted by: DaiShan
Originally posted by: MaxDSP
They wouldn't tell you if they were, right? I'm always cautious when I post or IM from work, but I doubt that my company is going to monitor the keystrokes of like 10,000+ employees nationwide. There's always that small possibility though...

They don't block access to AIM, and you are worried about key logging? Someones admin is sleeping on the job...

I only use AIM Express at work, they disabled program installations.
 

MaxDSP

Lifer
May 15, 2001
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Originally posted by: DrPizza
Originally posted by: MaxDSP
They wouldn't tell you if they were, right? I'm always cautious when I post or IM from work, but I doubt that my company is going to monitor the keystrokes of like 10,000+ employees nationwide. There's always that small possibility though...

They won't? I believe that Siemens outsources e-mail to some place in India where all of the incoming and outgoing emails are checked for work related content. Furthermore, it would be a piece of cake to log everyone's keystrokes.... that doesn't mean they're going to read them though. But, to make it more efficient, they could just search for particular words and narrow it down to a couple hundred employees to check up on. I believe one of the words they'd check for is "keylogger"... so you're busted if you used that word in this thread!

What's amazing about keyloggers is that you don't even have to send something...... you could type "my boss is an a$$hole", followed by a change of mind about sending that. The log would show "my boss is an a$$hole [del][del][del][del][del][del][del][del]...."

I'm not at work right now, it's my day off...:D

That last example you showed is pretty much on the dot. I tried out STARR on my PC and it logged screenshots, mouseclicks, windowevents, etc
 

MegaloManiaK

Golden Member
May 27, 2003
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Originally posted by: MaxDSP
Originally posted by: DaiShan
Originally posted by: MaxDSP
They wouldn't tell you if they were, right? I'm always cautious when I post or IM from work, but I doubt that my company is going to monitor the keystrokes of like 10,000+ employees nationwide. There's always that small possibility though...

They don't block access to AIM, and you are worried about key logging? Someones admin is sleeping on the job...

I only use AIM Express at work, they disabled program installations.

Most serious IT places block IM traffic, not just software installation. He was refering to the fact that they haven't disabled IM traffic then they aren't serious enough yet to do keylogging. Since IM traffic is one of the first things stopped nowadays.